turning again on Blakely, "The doctor wishes you to go to bed at once,
Mr. Blakely, and I will see you in the morning, but no more riding
away without permission," he concluded, and thereby closed the
interview. He had, indeed, other things to say to, and inquire of,
Blakely, but not until he had further consulted Graham. He confidently
expected the coming day would bring instructions from headquarters to
hold both Blakely and Trooper Downs at the post, as a result of his
dispatches, based on the revelation of poor Pat Mullins. But Downs,
forewarned, perhaps, had slipped into hiding somewhere--an old trick
of his, when punishment was imminent. It might be two or three days
before Downs turned up again, if indeed he turned up at all, but
Blakely was here and could be held. Hence the "horse order" of the
earlier evening.

It was nearly two when Blakely reached his quarters, rebuffed and
stung. He was so nervous, however, that, in spite of serious fatigue,
he found it for over an hour impossible to sleep. He turned out his
light and lay in the dark, and the atmosphere of the room seemed
heavily charged with rank tobacco. His new "striker" had sat up, it
seems, keeping faithful vigil against his master's return, but, as the
hours wore on, had solaced himself with pipe after pipe, and wandering
about to keep awake. Most of the time, he declared, he had spent in a
big rocking chair on the porch at the side door, but the scent of the
weed and of that veteran pipe permeated the entire premises, and the
Bugologist hated dead tobacco. He got up and tore down the blanket
screen at the side windows and opened all the doors wide and tried his
couch again, and still he wooed the drowsy god in vain. "Nor poppy nor
mandragora" had he to soothe him. Instead there were new and anxious
thoughts to vex, and so another half hour he tossed and tumbled, and
when at last he seemed dropping to the borderland, perhaps, of dreams,
he thought he must be ailing again and in need of new bandages or
cooling drink or something, for the muffled footfalls, betrayed by
creaking pine rather than by other sound, told him drowsily that the
attendant or somebody, cautioned not to disturb him, was moving
slowly across the room. He might have been out on the side porch to
get cool water from the _olla_, but he needn't be so confoundedly slow
and cautious, though he couldn't help the creaking. Then, what could
the attendant want in the front room, where were